


Big Trouble in Little China

by TigerLilyNoh



Series: The Uncomfortable Adventures of Sam in Law School [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anxiety, Bisexual Sam Winchester, F/M, Hunters & Hunting, Law Student Sam, M/M, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Sam-Centric, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 06:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10894128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerLilyNoh/pseuds/TigerLilyNoh
Summary: Series theme: Sam chose law school over hunting, but it wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined it.This ficlet: Sam seeks out help from some witches and his life get very complicated very quickly.





	Big Trouble in Little China

Sam hit his head on a low hanging plastic sign that he couldn’t read.  He ducked slightly and made a more concerted effort to watch where he was going.  In the five years that he’d lived in the Bay Area, he had never actually visited San Francisco’s Chinatown.  The streets were narrow.  The sidewalks were packed with goods for sale, pedestrians, wooden crates, stray cats, & more.  At least half of the signage was in Chinese.

“Yeah, you better watch yourself big guy.”  Stacy said when she noticed him rubbing his head.  

She stopped at one of the merchants on the sidewalk.  They spoke for a moment, then the man pulled six dark brown eggs from a pot of nearly black liquid, put them into a plastic baggie and handed it to her.  She gave him a few dollars as they parted.  Sam couldn’t help but wonder what sort of health code and income tax violations had just occurred.  He shook those thoughts from his mind, they weren’t here for that sort of work.  He was there to see a witch.

Stacy led him into a long skinny bakery at the base of a four story building.  They went passed a dozen people going about their business, down a hall, and up two flights of stairs.  The sound of televisions & talking bled through the thin walls.  Stacy pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door to one of the apartments, but she also knocked twice to announce herself before opening the door.

The apartment was small, cluttered, & dingy, but strangely cozy.  The two of them could barely squeeze into the space between the overstuffed floral print living room furniture.  An elderly Chinese couple were seated on a couch watching a medieval Chinese soap opera.  When they looked up at Stacy & Sam, Stacy explained something to them in Cantonese.  It made Sam a little uncomfortable to presumably have the others talking about them.

“Hi, I’m Sam.”  

“This is my grandma, Mei.  I’m pretty sure she’s the one in the neighborhood with the most demon knowledge.”  Stacy explained.

“Thank you for helping me.”  Sam spoke to the old woman, who nodded and waved her hand dismissing the magnitude of the aid she would be providing.

Mei got up from the couch and fetched a tray containing a tea set from the kitchen.  Sam moved to help her carry it, but she pointedly ignored the gesture.  She poured three cups of tea, then said something he couldn’t understand.

“She asked if you’d like some tea?”  Stacy translated.

“Sure.”  Sam nodded, then accepted a cup.  He waited until Stacy had some before he began sipping his tea.  

“Jung, my grandfather,”  Stacy nodded to the old man, who was largely ignoring them in order to keep watching his soaps.  “He owns the building, including the bakery.  All the tenants are associated with the coven, if not full members- we’re spread out over about four blocks, but this is our oldest building.”

“I didn’t realize covens got so big.”  Sam commented.  “I’d only heard of five members at most.”

“We have roots here going back 150 years.”  Stacy pointed out.  “Our coven is an institution in the community.  We used to be the main form of protection in the neighborhood.  It’s less of an issue nowadays, but still.”

“Do you fight with the other covens?”  Her description reminded him of gangs.

“We’ve been known to remove them from our territory, but we don’t fight in neutral territory.  That’s a sure fire way to get the norms spooked.”  Stacy observed as she finished her tea.  She swirled the dregs in her cup a bit before setting it back on the tray.

“Do you need the leaves?”  Sam asked uncertainly.

Stacy’s grandma started laughing at him and muttered something in Cantonese.  Stacy covered her own face in her hand in a gesture of mild embarrassment, then responded to her grandma.

“That was the wrong thing for me to say.”  Sam guessed.  "Did I offend her?“

"You’re fine.”  Stacy assured.  “She jokingly called you a gweilo.”

“Gweilo?”

“Ghost- not a real ghost.  It’s slang- kinda racist, think cracker.”  Stacy explained.  Sam nodded uncomfortably.  "I told her to cut you some slack.  You mean well.“

* * *

Sam & Stacy watched as Mei carefully turned the living room’s coffee table into an altar.  He couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.  This was his first time watching a seasoned witch performing her craft, and it was sort of a gift for him.  He felt a bit sick when the old woman began pulling animal innards from a Tupperware container and positioning them on the altar.  It was clearly heavy magic- though he quickly realized how heavy when Mei fetched what looked like a human skull from a cupboard.

“Is that a-”  Sam started, then shook his head.  “you know what don’t tell me.”

“It’s a-”

“Stop.  I don’t want to know.”  He wasn’t sure exactly how well willful ignorance worked as a legal defense, that was another thing to study when he got back to his dorm.

“It’s really old.  I don’t think the cops-”  Stacy began, but he held up his hand.

“Stop, just stop.”

The last reagent for the spell was a six ounce glass bottle full of crimson liquid.  Mei uncorked it, then placed it nearby, but not on the altar.

“What’s that?”

“Blood of the demon.”

“I thought demons didn’t have bodies…”  His stomach sank.  “That’s human blood?”

“I mean if you want to get technical.”  Stacy shrugged.

“Jesus.”

“Jesus doesn’t really come around when we start our work.”

“You don’t actually invoke demons & that kind of stuff though, do you?”  He glanced around, suddenly unsure what he’d gotten himself into.

“Demons are too much trouble for the payoff.”  Stacy commented.  “If you see anything really weird in Chinatown it’s either a more benevolent spirit or unwelcome- now the Sunset coven, those guys will-”

The old woman muttered something to Stacy, who shrugged.  Stacy cleared some space on the couch in front of the coffee table altar, then gestured for Sam to sit down.  Mei sat on a chair across from him while Stacy stood close by, ready to help if needed.

“Should I do anything?”  Sam asked.

“Just try to relax.”  

He took a deep breath and regretted not taking more of his anxiety meds that morning.  Not only was he nervous about being at the mercy of an old witch, who he wasn’t sure if she knew he used to be a hunter, but there was the additional fear about the weird aura.  It’d been driving him nuts the last fourteen hours- Had he been cursed on an old hunt?  Had he screwed up a spell when he was a kid and its damage had gone undetected?  He had no idea what he was supposed to do about having some kind of magic aura.  Stacy had been the one to spot it, so hopefully a more experienced witch of her sort might be able to identify it and hopefully know how to deal with it.  

He watched Mei begin the ritual.  For some reason his throat felt tight as she poured the demon blood in the shape of a sigil in front of him.  It was taking all his mental energy to try to stay calm.  The stress was creating a very fast onset migraine behind his eyes.  He started feeling a bit nauseous and when the old woman spoke her words echoed a bit in his head.  Stacy opened her mouth to translate, but hesitated for a second.

“She says that your soul has the shadow of a demon.”  Stacy told him.

“Shadow of a demon?”

Mei continued explaining something to Stacy, who quickly got up.  She ran around the room flipping several small mirrors so that they were facing away from Sam.

“What’s going on?”  Sam’s heart was starting to race.

“Magic mirrors repel or hurt spirits & demons-”

“Isn’t that what we want?”

“Not if you’re part demon.”

He was getting lightheaded.  This whole thing wasn’t making any sense.  They were talking about auras and demons- even when he was hunting he’d never had a run in with a demon.  Demons were a whole other level above the kind of things his family hunted.  The suggestion that he was somehow associated with demonic elements was laughable at best, and subtly unnerving.

“I’m not, something’s wrong.”  Sam rejected the idea, but his voice wasn’t as confident as he would’ve hoped.

“Hey, if you want to hold the skull and look at a mirror, you should be able to see-”  Sam reached out and picked up the skull, eager to disprove the old witch’s claim, but he didn’t get the chance to argue.  

The moment he touched the skull the migraine exploded, overwhelming him.  His vision was obscured with flashes of memories, nightmares, & scenes he didn’t understand.  There were dozens of random deaths- a woman lighting herself on fire.  Yellow eyes.  A man being stabbed in a parking lot.  A bar full of people suddenly began screaming in pain before falling to the ground and convulsing.  A man with yellow eyes.  A fire burning down a home while a young mother watched, holding her baby on the front lawn.  Five young adults were gunned down in the city streets by a group of men.  A man with yellow eyes cutting open a vein on his wrist.

“Stop it!”  Sam heard himself yell from far away.

“Let go.”  He could feel a hand on his wrist, but with the scenes flashing so quickly he couldn’t see his surroundings.  “Sam, you gotta relax.  Let go of the skull.”

He wasn’t sure what was happening.  Everything smelled of sulphur & burning flesh.  Images & sounds rattled in his brain creating vibrations that crippled him.  It was all too much to parse.  There was a sharp pain in his right shoulder, then everything faded to black.

* * *

Sam woke up on a bed that was far too small for him.  Despite the insignificant size of the bed, it took up at least 80% of the floor space in the tiny bedroom.  The walls were lined with cubbyholes filled with personal effects. Stacy slid open the bedroom door and smiled at him as she entered.

“Thanks for not throwing up on my bed.”  Stacy sat down on the bed next to him and handed him a damp washcloth.  “How’re you feeling?”

“My backpack.”  

He extended a hand, indicating that he wanted it.  She fetched the bag for him, then followed his direction to locate some beta blockers & pain killers.  He popped one of each, then laid back on the bed with the washcloth over his eyes.  There were about a million questions in his mind, but it was still too painful to speak.

“Your boyfriend texted you a couple times.  I didn’t reply or anything.”  Stacy said to help fill the silence.  “I’m sorry you got fried.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“What happened?”  Sam whispered.

“There was a little mix up during the ritual.”  Sam rolled his eyes at her understatement, though she couldn’t see it.  “Touching the skull was supposed to help with you seeing the whole demon situation, but she didn’t know you were a seer so you got overloaded.”

“I’m a what?”  Sam asked after pulling the cloth off his face so that he could see her reaction.

“You… you’re a seer, a psychic.”  Stacy’s normally confident posture recoiled inward as she realized mid sentence that she might be delivering news.  “Maybe it’s clairvoyance or precognition, maybe it hadn’t kicked in until you touched the skull-”

“I have nightmares & hallucinations, but they’re part of my PTSD or my condition.”  He corrected.  “They aren’t real.”

“What condition?”

“I have neurological problems.”  Technically he’d never been diagnosed with a specific condition.  His scans had all turned up unusual activity, but there wasn’t any physical or chemical indicators that his doctors had been able to point to as the source of his problems.  “I think I have neurological problems…”

“What if you’re just an undiagnosed psychic?”  She suggested.

“No, I’m actually sick.  I don’t just see stuff- I get migraines & blackout- nose bleeds, like physical ill.”  He was a bit uncomfortable with the way he felt like the need to defend himself.  He thought of the hallucinations of Dean he’d had in the middle of his exam.  That had felt strangely detailed- all of the hallucinations were vivid, lifelike.  “I'm… I think I’m sick.”

“Can’t you be both?”  Stacy suggested a morbid compromise.  “Like, I’m sorry, but you shouldn't’ve reacted to the skull that way unless you see stuff on your own.”

“I don’t know how to see- I didn’t do anything.”  Sam couldn’t begin to understand how he was supposed to have an ability like that, let alone be able to use it.  “How did it happen?  How do I make it stop?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve never met a seer before.  I’m not sure how people become seers, but if it’s related to you being part demon-”

“I’m not…”  Sam sighed.  He was too exhausted to be having that kind of argument.  “I’m human, let’s just leave it at that.”

“Okay.”  Stacy dropped it, but he could tell she wasn’t remotely convinced.  “Human or human with a little something extra, you’re seeing stuff and that’s gonna mess up all sorts of divination spells.  You gotta be careful with those or else you’ll get in another feedback loop.”

“The stuff that I saw…”  If divining had made it more intense- the images had been real.  They looked so much like his hallucinations and they were real- maybe all of them were real?  He covered his face with the washcloth, partially to hide his shame & partially to hide his watering eyes.  “I’ve been watching people die for years and didn’t do anything to stop it.  I don’t even know how many have died, dozens? Maybe hundreds?”

“You couldn’t save them.  You didn’t even know them.”  Stacy offered as some measure of comfort.

“My girlfriend died.  I saw her die, a week before it happened.”  Sam confessed for the first time.

“You didn’t know.”

There was a long silence that felt to Sam to be full of crushing static.  Everything was a bit too numb.  His heart was tight with guilt & old wounds reopened, but he was too lost to know what to do or how to function.  He didn’t even feel out of his element anymore- His whole world had been shattered in the course of a day.

“I don’t know how to save them.”  Sam whispered.  It was his responsibility to help somehow, he just didn’t know how.  “I don’t even know who they are.”

“I can ask around.  See if anyone knows how your soul could’ve gotten all mucked up.”  Stacy offered.  “I don’t really know what it’ll get ya.”

“I could tell…”  Sam stopped himself.  He didn’t want to tell his family.  It scared him to imagine how they’d react, to finding out he was a psychic- that some witches told him he was part demon.  Maybe they wouldn’t kill him, but it wouldn’t be good.  “I need to figure this out.  I need to save those people if I can… When I was a kid this kind of thing was driving around looking for leads, beating leads out of-”

“Hunting.”

“I’m not a hunter.  I’m out.”  He wanted to recite his mantra, but it wasn’t true anymore.  It never really had been.  “I’m not out.”

Sam pressed the washcloth to his eyes to help disguise the fact that he was crying.  He didn’t want to be dragged back into the life.  More than anything he wanted to finish school, put down roots, & make something of himself- something he could be proud of.  He was halfway through getting his J.D. and things were finally getting better with Brady.  The thought of leaving- he wasn’t sure he could take that kind of loss with all of his other problems wearing him down.  Hunting might just kill him after all.

“You don’t need to be a hunter to deal with the flip side.”  Stacy countered.  “You don’t need to drive around and beat people up the rest of your life.  This is the Bay Area, do you have any idea how much supernatural stuff is right in your backyard?”

“It’s dangerous to hunt where you’re staying.”  Sam recited.  That’s why hunters traveled so much.

“Hunters hunt, everyone else manages.  You don’t have to beat people up to get answers.”  Stacy assured.  “We can’t all be nomads.  Some of us have to have day jobs and pay for our reagents.”

“I don’t know how I’m gonna do this.”  Sam groaned.  “I can barely afford food.  My tuition is all through a scholarship.  I can’t buy intel or help.”

“What do you know about ground leases?”

Sam pulled the washcloth off of his face and stared at her.

* * *

Sam was sitting on the living room floor trying to decypher the Chen family’s ground lease agreement on a nearby building.  The original contract had been written in English, but there were dozens of handwritten alterations in traditional Hanzi.  Stacy tried her best to help make sense of the additions and they were about halfway through the 29 page document when several groups of people arrived.  A handful of women went to work in the tiny kitchen, while a seemingly endless collection of family members filled the entire communal section of the apartment.  After his fifth awkward introduction, Sam & Stacy retreated to her bedroom to keep working.

“What the hell’s going on out there?”  Sam asked after closing the bedroom’s pocket door behind them.

“My cousin’s visiting from SoCal.  We’re having a family dinner.”

He’d never seen such a large family gathering before, there had to be eighteen people.  It made him uncomfortable to be in the midst of such a warm family interaction.  The sharp contrast to his own upbringing made him want to find some familiar isolation.

“I can come back another time.”

“We’re almost done with this stupid thing.”  She threw the file folder of papers at him and plopped herself down on the bed.  “It’s not like they’re gonna come in with the door closed.”

He glanced between her, the paperwork, & the door.  Despite the unpleasant outcome, her family had tried to help him and he would need more help going forward if he was going to figure out what was happening to him without having to leave town.  Maybe he wasn’t actually a lawyer yet, but he had something of a talent for contracts- giving the ground lease a quick glance was a small price for him to pay.  Being in a social setting that made him uncomfortable raised the price a bit, but he could manage.

They worked for another hour before there was a knock at the door.  As soon as Stacy got the door they were ushered out of the bedroom in the chaos of setting a string of several small tables for dinner.  Sam was trying to sneak out of the apartment when an elderly woman took his arm and guided him to a free seat at the table.  He started to decline the surprisingly forceful invitation, but resigned himself to joining them as soon as he saw the spread of dishes.

To Sam’s relief Stacy’s brother, who was seated next to him, was actually a very interesting person to speak with.  Calvin was a forensic accountant for a local residential financing firm.  They spent a good amount of time chatting about the housing market crash and the impact it’d had on the regional rental market.  The way Calvin was excitedly expounding on the joy of mortgage interest deductions, Sam got the impression that the black sheep in the family of witches was equally grateful for his company.

Part way through dinner, Calvin was juggling his infant son and serving up an extra helping of steamed fish when the kid knocked a dish of hot mustard onto his dad’s lap.  With a small curse, he glanced around for someone to hand the baby off to while he cleaned himself up.  Sam was the closest person with his hands free, so he was handed the eight month old.

The kid was cute, but Sam wasn’t sure how to interact with babies.  He stared at the baby, who awkwardly stared back at him.  Several of the older women began talking to each other in Cantonese while looking at him.  His suspicion that they were gossiping about him was confirmed when Stacy started chewing them out.  He mentally kicked himself at the realization that he’d spent the hour leading up to dinner in Stacy’s bedroom that was little more than a bed.

“They know we’re not dating, right?”

“That’s what I keep telling them.”

“Please take this baby.”  Sam whispered, then handed her the kid and got up from his seat.

“You okay?”

“I need some anxiety meds.”

Sam popped some pills, then grabbed a joint & his lighter.  He left the apartment to go find a window in the hallway that he could smoke near.  After a few puffs, he noticed a silver 1978 Chrysler New Yorker parked across the street.  The full-sized car stood out in San Francisco, it must’ve been a huge pain in the ass to find parking- probably a tourist.  Sam watched the driver, who was seated in the car, while he smoked.  The grey haired man was flipping through several wallets and Sam mistook him for a thief- until he recognized the collection of fake badges.

Sam threw his half smoked joint out the window, then ran down the hall.  He burst in the door to the apartment, catching everyone’s attention.

“There’s a hunter outside.”  Despite any language barrier that may have existed, everyone seemed to know the word hunter.

“Where?”  Stacy’s dad asked as he got up from the table, along with nearly everyone else between the ages of 18-60.  One of the women hurried to a candle on the media stand and lit it.  As soon as it was lit Sam could hear hurried footsteps upstairs.

“Across the street, on the west side of the building.”  Sam answered.

“How many?”

“I just saw one.  I don’t know for sure.”  Sam saw Stacy’s dad go into a bedroom, then return with two pistols.  “Wait a second-”

“Sam it’s best if you just get out of the way.”  Stacy suggested.  “The top floor is warded, you can stay up there-”

“Jesus Christ- don’t kill him!”  Sam exclaimed partially positioning himself between them & the front door.  He didn’t know the hunter, but all of a sudden there were weapons and he didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

“This is our home.”  Calvin said, visibly disappointed to be in that situation.  

“If… if I can get him to leave- will you let me try to settle this without guns?”

* * *

The doorknob rattled as the hunter picked the lock.  When he was partially into the bakery, Sam turned on a flashlight that he’d duct taped to the side of an industrial refrigerator.  The hunter kept his gun aimed forward, but shielded his eyes with his offhand.

"Who are you?”  Sam asked from behind the industrial appliance.  Calvin, Stacy, & their dad were also armed and hidden behind cover, ready to fight if things took a bad turn.

“Agent Holt, FBI.”  The hunter held up a badge.  

“This is private property.  You’re trespassing.”  Sam warned.

“I just want to talk.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t trespassing.  We’ve called the cops.”  Sam lied.

“There’s no reason to get the local police involved.  I’m just doing a routine investigation.”

“That’s why you’re breaking & entering?”

“I’m authorized to-”

“Where’s your warrant?”  Sam cut him off.  Only the most detail-oriented hunters ever bothered carrying fake warrants.  They were too time consuming to make look credible for any given instance of poking around, and getting caught with one was highly frowned upon by the law enforcement community.

“Listen, if you want you can call my supervisor,  I have his card-”  The hunter tried to evade the request for the warrant, but Sam was familiar with the standard dodge.

“What office are you based out of?”  Sam shot back.

“Dallas.”

“Drop the card on the floor.”  Sam demanded.  After a pause the hunter let go of the card and it fell to the ground.

“You aren’t going to come get it?”

“Not right now.  I’m pulling up the Dallas office’s number myself.”  Sam lied.  "You can wait there with your hands up while I call or you can turn around and leave while this gets sorted out.“

"Listen, kid, you don’t want to mess with me-”  The hunter’s tone turned a little colder.

“No, you don’t want to mess with us.  You don’t have a search warrant.  You don’t have probable cause or a necessity to enter.  Any evidence you get as soon as you walked through that door will be worthless- and if you’re really a cop that should be a problem for you.  But what’s more of a problem for you is that you’re trespassing.  Your photograph has already been taken.  You left fingerprints.  If you really are a fed, you’ll walk away because you don’t feel threatened by me following up with your office and you know there wasn’t really any harm done.  But if you aren’t a peacekeeper, this is your warning.  Turn around & leave because if you threaten the safety of those who reside here we will be justified in shooting you.”

“You’re serious?”  The hunter said in disbelief.

“Leave with your life, then get a warrant or fuck off.”

Sam & the others watched the security monitor as the man left.  The hunter stopped just short of the street to check on top of the doorjamb.  For a moment, Sam held his breath hoping that there weren’t any harewither twigs or other protective charms above the entryway.  When the man ended up empty handed, he slammed the door and hurried to his car.

“They never check the air vent above the door.”  Calvin whispered.

“For fuck’s sake, I almost had a heart attack.”  Sam muttered as he leaned against the wall.  His heart was pounding and he was trembling.  “I think I might’ve just practiced law without a license.”

“You’re a fake lawyer, he’s a fake cop.”  Stacy smiled at him.

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

He’d just been on the wrong side of an encounter with a hunter- well, it wasn’t exactly the wrong side… it was just the other side.  He didn’t feel like the villain in this scenario.  They were just having a nice dinner and this guy broke in probably with the intention to kill some of them.  If push came to shove, the hunter probably would’ve killed him and he wasn’t even a witch.

“Should we follow him?”  Calvin asked.  The last thing Sam wanted was for Calvin to stumble into a hunters’ bar and make his wife a widow.

“It’s too dangerous.”  Sam warned.  “He might just back off if you’re lucky.  He struck out checking the door and for all he knows you guys are just paranoid about DEA-”

“Immigration.”  Stacy corrected.

“Whatever.”  Sam shrugged as he took a deep breath.  “The thing hunters hate the most is being caught by the system.  They know how their jobs look to people outside of the flip side.  If they’re arrested they could be put away for really serious crimes.  That’s why the law is our friend.”

“You think he’s actually scared off?”

“If he’s smart.”

“I’ll go set up some extra defenses, just in case.”  Calvin said before heading back up stairs.

Stacy asked her dad something and he replied before following his son up to the rest of the family.

“I should get out of here.”  Sam told her.  He was too jittery to hold still.  “I’ve got about a pint of adrenaline in my system- I’m fucking shaking.”

“He’s waiting in his car out front.”  She warned.  “And the way out the back is a big mess.  It’s a construction site, so you may be able to get through it, but it’ll be awkward with you climbing through a bunch of scaffolding.  Not the quietest exit.”

“I’ll try to slip out-”  Sam started.

“You’re a 6’5” white guy in Chinatown, you aren’t slipping anywhere.”  Stacy pointed out.  “In at most two hours, he’ll have to move his car or it’ll be towed.  You can leave then.”

“Great- I don’t suppose any of your neighbors have a treadmill or maybe I can just run a few laps-”  Stacy started snickering at something.  “What?”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pack of condoms.  A grin of false innocence formed on her face as she nodded toward the pantry.  He looked around at the dark quiet kitchen.

“I think that’s a health code violation.”  Sam said, but he let her take him by the hand.

“Just don’t fuck me on a work surface.”

* * *

As soon as Sam got off the train back to Santa Clara he lit up a joint.  He diligently smoked the whole thing before walking across the street to campus.  In the last eight hours he’d found out he was a psychic & possibly part demon, had a complete nervous breakdown, given legal advice without a license twice, threatened an armed hunter, and had sex on 200 pounds of flour.  Somehow his simple life had become very complicated.  He wanted to bury himself in his bed and sleep for a month.

The next morning there was a knock at his door.  By the time he got some pants on the person was gone, but a plastic bag of to go containers had been left for him.  As he started unpacking the collection, he realized they were full of leftovers from the night before.   He shook his head for a moment, then that noticed one of the boxes was lighter than the others.  He opened it to find $2,000 in small bills and a note “Until next time.”  He stared at the money for a long while, then hid it away in his nightstand.  With a little discomfort he realized, come next January, he would not be receiving a 1099 income statement.


End file.
